The anonymous marketplace for illegal drugs has been hacked. Defcon, a pseudonymous administrator for the site, shares the following details:

Nobody is in danger, no information has been leaked, and server access was never obtained by the attacker.

Our initial investigations indicate that a vendor exploited a recently discovered vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol known as "transaction malleability" to repeatedly withdraw coins from our system until it was completely empty.

Despite our hardening and pen-testing procedures, this attack vector was outside of penetration testing scope due to being rooted in the Bitcoin protocol itself.

Defcon ends his missive with a notice on what to expect for the future. In short, they plan to rebuild and change the way money moves from buyer to seller using a technical "multi-signature" system possible through Bitcoin instead of a standard escrow.